Posts Tagged ‘fitness’

Girls Just Want To Run… And Be Loved

Posted: July 17, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Yesterday morning was the annual Girls Just Wanna Run 5K.  It’s the largest women’s only run/walk event in the state of Missouri.  It’s also one of the runs my wife participated in last year while we were separated.

This year, it was bigger than ever, with over 1.000 registrants and well over 900 actually completing the course.  As I did last year, I volunteered so that I could be part of it, although obviously, not as a runner.  Lots of husbands and boyfriends serve as traffic directors, man the water stations, etc.  I try to get stationed near the start of the course so that I can see my wife go by, then get to the finish line in time to be there for her after the last person passes my intersection.

As a traffic director, I get to watch hundreds and hundreds of women pass by, but I only have eyes for one.  Last year, as my wife came by, she was sort of on the outside of a fairly large group of runners, so she was more or less running right toward me.  I smiled and said a quick encouraging word (which she didn’t hear because she had her headphones in), but she gave me a high five, and I was pretty much on cloud nine with that.

This race was deep into our separation and was at a time when it was really sinking in that she might not choose me or ever come back to me.  That little gesture, and really any sign of friendship or affection at that point, went a long way with me.  At last year’s finish, she was exhausted from the extreme heat and disappointed with her time.  We hung around for some of the activities and door prizes, and also just so she could have a chance to recover from the heat and humidity.

After the race, they held a zumba demonstration, put on by some instructors from a local fitness center.  My wife was looking for a new zumba class and wanted to meet one of the teachers.  We went over and talked to him about the class, and at one point, he asked, is this your husband?  There was way too long a pause before she said yes, and I was really struggling with fears and doubts.  I knew that as fit and attractive as she was, she would have no problem getting pretty much whoever she wanted, and I didn’t know at that point how to make her want me.

Thank goodness it was always me that she really wanted deep down and I was able, with God’s help, to show her enough to make her believe that things were going to be right again between us.  She just needed to believe that I was really going to love her forever the way I had promised to so many years ago.  That race would be the last one she would run in before we were together again, although it didn’t seem possible that day.

Of course, this year’s race was an entirely different story.  I got an enthusiastic high five from her at the turn, and there was no doubt that we both felt the same way.  It was hot again, but her time was quite good and she nearly finished in the top 10% of the field.  She was still disappointed in her standing in her age group, but I kept telling her, “you beat almost 900 people today.”

It was wonderful to be a couple afterwards, instead of me feeling like a tag along that she may or may not have wanted to be hanging around.  We knew quite a few people at the race, and most of them have never known us as anything other than a committed husband and wife.  That’s how quickly and completely things can turn around, and that’s why you need to never give up if you’re struggling or fighting for your marriage.  Keep believing and do what you need to do, but never give up.  There’s always hope.

Running the Bass Pro Marathon

Posted: July 10, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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My wife asked me just within the last few days if I believed that a mid-life crisis was what started all of our marriage problems.  I told her I didn’t think so, but that we both had certainly had some strange behavior and done some crazy and uncharacteristic things around the time we each turned forty.

She had announced, back when she was about to turn 39, that she was going to run a marathon to prove that she wasn’t old.  Even though she certainly didn’t need to prove anything to anyone except herself, she spent the better part of a year training and, last November, she did in fact run a full marathon.  By that time, we had already been through our separation and were well into the restoration tour, but she had set her mind on doing this, and I had supported her the whole way.

The marathon was her thing, not mine.  I encouraged her and trained with her to some extent, but I never had any plans to run it, nor could I have because of my knee injury.  It was, ironically, while I was attempting to do a long training run with her that the injury occurred, so even if I had any thoughts of trying to run it up to that point, they ended that day.  I was happy to be her cheerleader for this event and nothing more.

The fitness center that we are members of announced a training program last Spring for people who wanted to run the Bass Pro marathon in the fall.  It was called the Galloway program, named after running guru Jeff Galloway.  The cost was $100 and we paid it and signed my wife up.  It started right during the time that our marriage was falling apart and it mostly involved training runs with a large group on Saturday mornings.

Soon after the training started, we separated.  There were many Saturday mornings that were pure anguish for me, as I would often pick her up from her loft, have her drop me off at the gym, and then she would take the car and go on to the place where her running group was meeting.  I was working out alone, while she ran with her group.  When she was done, she would come up to the gym and pick me up, and then there was never any certainty of whether we would spend any time together or have to say good-bye again.

After we got back together, and especially after my triathlon, she faltered somewhat in her training.  I was no longer training for anything, and we were enjoying our marriage too much to be as disciplined as we should have been for her first marathon.  There were a number of Saturday mornings that we just didn’t get out of bed. We would say that we would go together and make up the running the next day.  Sometimes we did, and sometimes we didn’t.

To say that my wife is amazing would be the understatement of the century.  She reached a point, about a month before the race, that she decided she was still committed and was going to do it.  One morning, when she was supposed to be running 23 miles, she felt good enough and decided to go ahead and do the whole 26, just so that she would know that she could.  That happened to be a day that she was scheduled to work a full shift at Dillard’s, so she ran the equivalent of a full marathon in the morning and then went to work.

Sign right before the finish line

The day of the Marathon, she was nervous and I was excited.  It was a beautiful day for early November, so the weather wasn’t going to be a factor.  Since I couldn’t participate, and I didn’t want to sit around for five hours waiting for her, I decided to volunteer at one of the intersections along the route.  That way I got to see her about half way through and give her some words of encouragement.

I brought my bike, and I figured that after I was done at my station, I would go try to find her on the course and see how she was doing.  I tracked her down at around mile 21 and she was in a lot of pain.  I stayed with her for those last few miles and talked her through it when her body wanted her to quit.  When she crossed the finish, it was an extremely proud moment for each of us.  For her, it was a huge accomplishment that not many people will ever achieve.  For me, it made the pain of all those awful mornings go away, and I was thrilled to step aside and let her get all the praise and recognition for what she had done.

Anniversary Week

Posted: June 30, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Our wedding anniversary is in October, and last year, we decided that one day wasn’t going to be nearly enough to celebrate not only reaching our 14th year, but all the love we had found in just the few months prior.  We began planning far in advance, and it just so happened that, while our actual date was on a Wednesday, there were events on both the weekends before and after that we wanted to do anyway.  The fact that they book-ended the week of our anniversary was just the excuse we needed to go all out.

Our anniversary week – which actually ended up lasting 9 days – began in St. Louis the Saturday before.  We were going to be in the Halloween 10K race that I wrote about yesterday, and it was on the Sunday morning before our anniversary.  Since it was to be early in the morning, and in St. Louis, we went up the day before and got a hotel room for the night.

We spend a lot of time in St. Louis, and try to go up there for at least a day trip once a month.  There is an Italian community there called “The Hill,” and it was what brought us to St. Louis the first time we ever visited.  We eat in the restaurants there and my wife, who is Italian, shops in the family owned grocery stores and bakeries.  It’s as close as you can get to being in the old country around here, and we both love it.

We also enjoy Forest Park, which is larger than New York’s Central Park.  It hosts the St. Louis Zoo, The Art Museum, The History Museum, miles of running and cycling trails, an outdoor skating rink in the winter, and much more.  Most of the attractions are free, and the scenery is very beautiful.

The day in St. Louis was purely for enjoying ourselves.  We picked up our race packets in the afternoon, but other than that, nothing was scheduled.  It was just a day for the two of us to spend in any way we wished. It was the kickoff day for the restoration tour’s week-long anniversary celebration, and we were spending it with the person we loved, in a place we loved.

The hotel we were staying in had a free hot food bar in the evening, so we took advantage of that even though it wasn’t the type of stuff we usually ate.  They also had an indoor/outdoor pool and the weather was actually nice enough to lay out in the sun for a while.  I had bought my wife a new bathing suit and was glad that she got to wear it.  She did get in a bit of trouble in the hot tub for calling other people’s kids “critters,” but no real harm was done.

In the morning, it was fun to put on our costumes and go down to breakfast at the hotel.  Naturally, it sparked a lot of conversation, seeing two people wearing huge quarters.  We got some pictures taken, shared a little bit of what was going on, and headed downtown for the race.  I knew that my knee might not hold up, but I hoped it would.

The race wound around downtown, went through the grounds of the Anheuser Busch plant, almost took us into Busch Stadium, and provided great views of the Arch and the Mississippi River.  Some of the costumes were fantastic.   There was a zombie, Two people dressed as peace and quiet (a hippie and a mime), when pigs fly (you’ll just have to imagine), Gumby, a praying mantis in a cage, and too many others to mention here.  We didn’t win any of the prizes, but we had a great time hanging around and seeing it all.

It was only the beginning of anniversary week, but it not only left us with a lot of great memories, it got us looking toward the future, as well.  For next year’s Halloween 10K, we’re thinking of either the tortoise and the hare (think a dorky looking turtle and a playboy bunny here) or Beauty and the Beast (my wife’s favorite Disney fairy tale).  Two days down, the rest of the week to go…

Opposite Sides Of The Same Coin

Posted: June 29, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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A few days after last July’s first friday art walk, I called my friend who had gone with us.  I suspected he had seen what I had seen that evening and that he would confirm what I was thinking.  I asked him over the phone, “Are you as confused as I am about why my wife and I are separated?”

“Definitely,” he told me.  “You guys are one.  You’re opposite sides of the same coin.”  I loved that phrase.  I actually told my wife that he said that soon afterward, but I didn’t think she had really paid any attention to it.   In fact, I forgot all about it until she brought it up during the restoration tour.

Right after we got back together, I completed my first triathlon, and my wife was training for her first full marathon.  Once the triathlon was over, I was looking for a new challenge, and we decided to train for some 10K races.  There were two in October – one in Springfield near our loft, and one in St. Louis close to our anniversary.

When we looked into the Halloween 10K in St, Louis, we found out that it’s not just a race.  It’s a fun event where many people run in costumes, there are props and Halloween themed scenes along the route, and a costume contest after the race.  We knew we wanted to be part of it, and we knew we wanted to run in costumes, but we didn’t know what to dress up as.

We kicked around different ideas, but nothing really stood out.  Then one day, my wife said, “Why don’t we go as opposite sides of the same coin?”  I was thrilled that she had remembered that and still thought about it, but I wasn’t sure how you could make a costume out of that.  I asked her, and as always, she had a great idea.

We cut out circles of cardboard and painted them silver.  Then she used a black marker and a projector at school to trace the features of a quarter on each, heads on one and tails on the other.  We used a Missouri quarter because it has the St. Louis Arch on the back of it.  We dressed in all black with the quarters attached to the front of our shirts.  We printed each half of the phrase on different sheets of paper, and attached them in sheet protectors to our backs.

We probably looked pretty silly and they were really unprofessional costumes, but we couldn’t have been happier with them.  We got people to take pictures of us in the hotel lobby and at the race.  It was a great experience and one that we look forward to making an annual tradition.  The only negative about it was that I injured my knee a few weeks beforehand, and ended up having to walk part of it and cross the finish line in a lot of pain.

Even that ended up being a blessing, because my wife refused to run on ahead and leave my side.  I kept telling her not to let me ruin the race for her, and she just kept saying, “We’re together.”  She stayed with me every step of the way, and we joined hands for the last few steps as we crossed the finish line.  Our times were not even close to competitive, but that didn’t matter.  Everything about the race was symbolic of what had changed between us since getting back together.

What had changed was everything.  It continues to amaze me that my wife is so different now.  When you’ve been with someone for more than a decade, you think you know everything about them.  You assume that you know how they will react, and what they will do at any given time, but everything was new and different.  It’s true that opposites do attract.  My wife and I are very different from each other, but it takes the two sides to make the one coin.

A Historical Stop On the Restoration Tour

Posted: June 24, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Today, the restoration tour took us by bicycle to the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield.  It’s a historical site of a civil war battle that has, in a roundabout way, played a role in our lives ever since we moved to Missouri.

Our first house in Missouri was located on about 80 acres that the landlord ran cattle on.  Just to the north was the Wilson’s Creek Battlefield.  If you walked straight out our back door, you would come to the boundary of the battlefield, where Terrell Creek merges with Wilson’s Creek.  That was the house that was destroyed by the tornado on March 12, 2006.

The history and effects of that tornado have already been documented in this blog, but that event was the single biggest factor in the changes in myself that led to the downfall of our marriage.  The fact that the battlefield was there was incidental, but it did provide the backdrop for many good hours of fishing, hunting, and exploring before the tornado.

When we moved back to Republic in 2007, we always talked about going out to the battlefield some day, but we never did.  Then, last Spring, my wife got into cycling right about the same time we were splitting up.  We also got interested in becoming triathletes and we heard that the trail through the Wilson’s Creek Battlefield was a good place to train because of the hills and conditions.

I got my wife her first road bike for her birthday that year, and I also bought her a pink cycling jersey.  This was during the time that we still lived together, but that she no longer thought that she loved me, and things were already in motion to break us apart.  I took her and her bike out to the battlefield so that she could ride the trails while our son and I ran.  We took pictures of her with her bike and her jersey and I tried to be happy for her despite the circumstances.

About a month later, she bought a new bike and moved out.  We only went out to the battlefield a few times together, and I went several times by myself after that.  I still have those pictures, and they’ve always made me kind of sad because of the memories they invoke.

Since we’ve been back together, cycling and fitness have been, once again, a big part of our lives.  We both have nice road bikes now, and during the summer, we practically live at the gym or out on the many trails near our home.  During the school year, it’s not uncommon for us to cycle the 18 miles to work.  This August, on the day of our renewal ceremony, we plan to spend the morning riding the 62 mile Tour De Cox.

Just recently, after much indecision, my wife decided that she does want to compete in the Tiger Tri this August.  Since we really do need to step up our training, we decided that this morning, we would ride out to the battlefield, do some running once we get there, and ride back.  This led to a comedy of errors, thanks to the navigator on our phones and some unmarked country roads that we may or may not have been supposed to have taken.

We did eventually reach the battlefield, and as we rode into the parking lot where we used to unload bikes from the back of the car, I realized that my wife was wearing that same pink jersey from more than a year before.  I hadn’t intended today to be a restoration tour stop.  I just thought it was going to be a long ride and brick workout, but when I saw where we were and the memories came flooding back, I realized that this was a part of our restoration just as much as the planned stops.

Sometimes that’s the way restoration works.  Sometimes you’re just doing work that needs done, and you discover something you didn’t expect.  It could be a color of paint underneath that shows up while scraping.  It could be a discovery of something that was built over, but is still there and can be incorporated back into being part of the house again.  The great thing is, those discoveries happen, and then you get to choose what to do with them.  Whether it’s a house, a life, or a marriage that’s being restored, it will almost always end up being a combination of the things you planned to do and the things you discover along the way.

A Toast To Love… And Swimming!

Posted: June 23, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Facebook and social media is such a part of our lives today that it’s almost hard to remember being without it.  Of course, social networking can be a double-edged sword.  It’s great for connecting with people in today’s busy world.  It can also be a place where people air their dirty laundry, share too much information, and are victimized by predators.

While we were separated, my wife and I were both careful about what we posted on our Facebooks and for that I am grateful.  I understood that my wife wasn’t including me in her virtual life during that time, even though she never changed her relationship status from “married.”  She simply never responded to my posts, and didn’t interact with me online.

We had also been going to the gym separately, which was excruciating for me, especially when chance put us there at the same time.  I wanted her to want to work out with me, but instead she barely acknowledged me.  I respected her boundaries and didn’t push.  I understood why she was doing what she was doing and even though I didn’t like it, I took the unselfish road of loving her in the ways she would allow me to, and not trying to force anything.

Last August, in those first days of being back together, we were still figuring out where we stood with each other.  Of course, we went to the gym together then, but things were still awkward.  Even though my wife had dropped out of triathlon training, she had kept up her swimming and was constantly increasing her distance.  She would set goals for a certain number of laps and then raise the amount as she obtained each goal.

Ironically, she had never learned to swim as a youngster.  I took it for granted that my mother had taken us for swimming lessons every summer when I was a kid.  When we first started going to the pool together last Spring, I had to show her the strokes and convince her that she could do it.  At first, she couldn’t even do one lap.

Soon after she started swimming, we split up.  I only swam as much as I needed to for training, because I view the swim as a necessary evil of being a triathlete.  She found that swimming energized her and the water gave her a type of solace, so she began spending a lot of time in the pool.  After only about four months from when she began, she set her sights on two miles with no rest.

The morning she was going to attempt it, I started out in the pool with her.  It was going to take about two hours by her estimate, so I was only beside her for about the first thirty minutes.  At that point, I got out and went to run and do other things while she continued.

In our fitness center, there is an indoor track that has windows on one side overlooking the pool.  When I knew she had been swimming for more than 90 minutes, I began taking a look each time I came around.  At first she looked steady and strong, but as it approached an hour and 45 minutes, I could see that she was starting to struggle.  Her form was faltering and I could tell she was exhausted.

I decided to go down to the pool and I knelt by the edge of her lane.  She saw me and gave me a signal of how many laps she had left.  I stayed there and gave her encouragement each time she turned around.  When she finished, she hugged me.  It was the first time she had publicly shown that type of affection since we reconciled.  Then she posted on Facebook that she couldn’t have done it without me.

That was a breakthrough for us.  I don’t really know why, but somehow, her accomplishing that goal and me being there supporting her changed things.  Where she had been so reserved for so long, the floodgates opened.

A Toast?

Champagne is a universal drink of celebration, and she had planned her next tatoo as a celebration of swimming two miles.  The fact that it not only occurred right after we got back together, but also provided the catalyst to set her free to love me outwardly again made it a celebration of much more than just swimming endurance.  I’ll drink to that!

Food, Fun, Fitness, and Following God

Posted: June 21, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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It’s the first day of summer and my wife and I have been on about a three-day eating fest.  This isn’t exactly productive, since we are both fitness buffs and summer is the busy time for competitions.  There are races and events nearly every weekend, and we should be in training mode.  In fact, we keep telling ourselves that we are, and then revising that to, “we will be starting tomorrow.”

The problem is two-fold.  One, we are both foodies, and two, we’re really enjoying our year of restoration.  There is so much wonderful food out there to eat (and to cook), and we’re having so much fun enjoying each other’s company and experiencing our second chance at love.

Last year was the first year that we were both full-time educators. It has been my dream for many years for us to have summers off together while still being paid from our school jobs.  Of course, last summer started off as a nightmare instead of a dream.  This year, we are living not only the dream of spending summer vacation together, but a summer of being in love again.

Father’s Day began with going out for breakfast at a local breakfast cafe that is really a throwback diner.  The atmosphere is great and the food is anything but healthy.  Then there was going out to lunch with my Dad and family, followed by my wife cooking dinner for our entire small group from church.  I told myself it was my “cheating day,” since I had been in a triathlon the day before.

Yesterday was spent in Kansas City catching up with my wife’s second daughter, who she put up for adoption as a baby, and who just made contact with us last year, right after we got back together.  Had we not worked our marriage out, things might not have gone so well with that relationship, but it has been a real blessing getting to know her and sharing a little bit of our lives.  We sat for more than three hours in La Bodega, a Spanish tapas bar last night, and it would be a major understatement to say that nobody left hungry.

This morning, after our workout, we stopped in for the lunch buffet at Old Chicago, another of our weaknesses, and then celebrated the release of the “Summer Crush” cupcake at our downtown cupcakery.  Tomorrow we will start eating right and being on a training diet, though.  After all, we have races coming up…(wink, wink)

I actually first met my wife when she handed me a job application at a retail store where she worked back in the early 90’s when we were both going to college.  Then, later, she showed up at the fitness center at that same college where I had since gotten a job as an instructor.  I remembered her (you don’t just forget the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen), and we got to know each other a little bit through the gym.

We were both education majors, so we had that in common as well.  Our friendship grew, but we were both in other relationships at the time.  When we finally found ourselves both single and available, we had been friends for so long that we almost didn’t date.  Eventually though, we did, and a third component, our spiritual lives, began to fall into place.

I had gotten away from church and anything spiritual when I had gone through my second divorce.   I knew what I believed, and I knew that eventually I would have to fix that part of my life, but I had spent too long drinking too much and doing my own thing to be much good for anyone else.  My wife didn’t know what she believed and was searching when we first got to know each other.  As I got my spiritual act together, I was able to help her sort hers out and find her way.

Those three areas of life: education, fitness, and spirituality, had formed the foundation for our friendship and dating relationship so many years ago and now have come full circle.  Now, as educators, we have the schedule that allows us to spend time together the way we do.  Working out, being active, and competing together keeps us fit and active, and greatly improves the quality of our lives.  Seeking God, and following Him gives meaning and purpose to who we are as individuals and as a couple.

Food?  Well, that just kind of evolved over the years.  We tend to agree with one of the hosts on Fox Sports Radio, who said, “I’d rather kill myself in the gym and eat whatever I want, than diet.”  Life is truly beautiful now, and we are seeing the fulfillment of so many of our dreams, as well as reaping the fruit of a lot of our hard work.  It’s mind-blowing to think of how close we came to throwing it all away, and what a horribly tragic mistake that would have been.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Posted: June 18, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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I completed a sprint triathlon in Willard, MO this morning – my first since the Tiger Tri last August.  For the first time since I started competing in races, my wife was there to support me and cheer me on.  During the transitions and at the finish, she was there today, taking pictures and offering encouragement.

In my other events, she was either competing also, or simply not there.  I went to all of her events last year while we were having our marital breakdown.  Every time she ran, I was there supporting her and being excited for her.  I was glad to do it and didn’t ask for anything back.  Last year, it was disappointing not having that from her, but I understood it based on where she was (or wasn’t) in the relationship.

There are a lot of things that have changed and turned around completely since then.  It would be one thing for us to have simply worked through our differences and decided to give it another try.  What happened, though, was something different altogether.  During our separation and reconciliation, we were changed. We became new and different people.  Things are not like they were before.

My wife has always had difficulty with empathy.  She was never one to show her feelings, and always kept up the “I’m tough” appearance.  Some of this was a survival technique arising out of an abusive background.  She had a sense that no one had been there to comfort her or empathize with her.  No one made her feel better when she was hurting, so she didn’t really have it in her to offer that to anyone else.

She also never did well with sickness.  She has a very strong immune system and her kids seemed to inherit those healthy genes.  Since she was never really sick growing up, she never experienced a lot of being cared for.  In the same way, her kids were rarely sick as they grew up, and when they were, they would usually recover quickly.  Her attitude tended to be, “suck it up and get better,” because that what was pretty much what she had always done.

My immune system isn’t so efficient, and I’ve had my share of illness during our marriage.  It took me a while to get past the idea that she wasn’t going to pamper me when I was sick.  Eventually, I came to accept that, in our marriage, I was going to more or less have to deal with being sick on my own.  It’s not that she didn’t care.  She just wasn’t wired that way.

Last year, I spent months giving to her in every way I could and asking for nothing in return.  I poured myself into her day after day, week after week, just trying to show her how much I loved her and what that meant.  My only intention in it all was to love her enough that it would break through the wall that she had built between us, so that we could be together again.

Last week, I got sick, completely out of the blue.  I came down with a fever right when I was trying to push my training for the triathlon.  For several days, I was burning up and weak, unable to do much of anything.  It was the first time I’ve been sick since we’ve been back together, and the difference in the way she treated me was astounding.

She constantly asked me how I was doing and if there was anything I needed.  She put blankets over me and held me at night when I was shivering.  She was kind, compassionate, and attentive.  In short, she treated me the way I’ve always wanted to be treated.  Then today, she was my cheerleader as I swam, cycled, and ran.

So how did this happen?  What made the change?  In contemporary language, they say, “What goes around comes around.”  People call it karma.  They say, “What you give out will come back to you.”  Jesus said, “Whatever you sow, that you will also reap,” and “Give, and it will be given to you.”  These are spiritual truths.  When you give from a pure heart and unselfish motives, it changes things.  People still have a free will, and nobody forced my wife to change, but in the context of receiving so much love from me, she wanted to.

Restoring The Medical Mile

Posted: June 12, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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My wife now has two silver medals from the Cox Health Medical Mile hanging on our “wall of fame.”  This is where we display all of our race bib numbers and medals from the various events we participate in.

Our "Wall of Fame"

Last year, after she ran the half-marathon that inspired me to get back in shape, I set my sights on running a 5K as a goal for myself.  The Medical Mile is an annual event in Springfield that benefits the Children’s Miracle Network.  Recently, they added a 5K run/walk, and I chose that event to be my first.  I used the C25K program and some trail running with my wife and our son to train, and I hoped to be able to run it in under 30 minutes.

At the event, they hold the mile run first, then the 5K follows after about a 30 minute break.  Some runners participate in both, and my wife was to be one of them.  I waited by the finish line to cheer her on in the mile, and she ran a faster time than she had in any of her training runs.  Unfortunately, she used up so much of her energy that she struggled through the 5K, battling the heat and developing a headache partway through.

I had no idea how to pace myself during the 5K, so I just tried to let my body tell me how to fast to go.  It was a hot, humid day, but I felt strong as I approached the finish line.  My lack of experience kicked in there and I didn’t even look at the clock to gauge my time.  I ended up missing my goal by one second, posting a 30:01.  I was a little disappointed, but I was glad to have completed my first race.

Afterward, we hung around for the award ceremony, mostly to see if we would win any of the random door prizes that are usually given away at these events.  Both of our mouths fell open in disbelief when the announcer called out my wife’s name during the medal presentations.  She had been training for 5K’s;  the mile was something of an afterthought, so we hadn’t even considered where she had finished.  It turned out, she placed second in her age group and eighth overall!

Our separation made it a bittersweet day.  It was great to be sharing this part of lives, but I would have given everything I had to have our marriage back.  I was proud of myself for running the 5K, and proud of my wife for her accomplishments, but there was a hole in my heart where she should have been.  I took a lot of pictures, bragged about her medal to everyone I could, and tried to make the moment last as long as possible.  In the end, though, we were going to go our separate ways.

For this year’s race, which was held last weekend, she moved up into the 40-49 age group, so we figured that gave her an even better chance, but you never know with these things.  She had also been spending more time enjoying our new life together and a lot less time training, so she didn’t even commit to running the mile until a week or two beforehand.  Her training runs weren’t very good, but I figured she’d pull out a better time when it was the real thing.

She didn’t run nearly as well this year as last year, but we tried not to be disappointed.  We were glad to be part of supporting a good cause and glad to be together.  That was the biggest difference.  Last year, there was all the stress of our marriage problems and the uncertainty of our future clouding everything we did.  We were working hard and training well, and we were both getting into really good physical condition. Mentally and emotionally, everything was marred by the fact that we weren’t together and things weren’t working out for us.

This year, we thought it must be a mistake when the same announcer again called my wife’s name as the second place winner in her division.  We didn’t think she had placed and had almost left before they even presented the awards.  This year’s Medical Mile and 5K would have been a successful stop on the restoration tour even without a medal to show for it.  Getting to bring one home and add it to the wall just made it that much more of a special memory.

Better Communication: Better Intimacy

Posted: June 11, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Intimacy implies so much more than sex, but that’s what most people think of when that word is used.  It’s the part of a relationship that should be reserved for marriage, but without emotional intimacy, a sexual relationship, even between spouses, can be hollow and dysfunctional.  Sexuality should be a loving product of the relationship, not the point, or the driving force to it.

Mort Fertel, who I’ve previously referenced in this blog, says the two most important keys to a good sex life are physical condition and emotional intimacy.  The physical part is a pretty easy fix.  If you’re not in shape, get to work, and you’ll get there.  Anyone who commits to physical fitness can achieve the results.

The emotional part can be more elusive.  One thing became painfully clear to me during our separation and it now seems so obvious, I don’t know how I missed it.  Two unhealthy people can’t have a healthy marriage.  It doesn’t even make sense.  If the people in the marriage are struggling with personal issues, those problems will be part of the relationship.

If these are significant issues, then each person will have to get well as an individual. This may mean therapy, as I needed, or being healed by God’s love and grace, which my wife experienced.  Whatever problems you have apart from the marriage, you will still have within the marriage.  Finding someone to love does not make these go away. It may temporarily take your mind off them, but they will still be there, and they will affect you.

For the small stuff, and, to dismiss another popular cliché, it’s not all small stuff, the secret is incredibly simple.  It’s communication.  You have to tell your partner what you think and feel.  He or she can’t read your mind, and it’s selfish and immature to assume that your spouse “should know.”

I used to keep everything inside, and resent my wife, who not only hadn’t done anything wrong, she didn’t even know there was anything wrong.  Then, at some point, I would blow up.  Whatever was going on at the time would usually have little or nothing to do with what I was upset about.  It just reached a certain point and I unloaded.  Nothing was accomplished except that my wife would get hurt, and I would feel bad.

During those first few days that my wife and I were back together,  and before we had talked everything out, the stress of the uncertainty about our relationship was affecting me in the bedroom.  I’ve never had issues there before, and it really caused me some anxiety, which only made it worse.  I decided to talk to my therapist about it.

He told me it was very common under the circumstances, and that it almost certainly wasn’t a physical problem, but an emotional one.  He said that we should take things slow and talk everything out, and that the problem would most likely go away on its own.  At my next appointment, I told him, “I took your advice about talking everything out, but didn’t follow the advice about taking things slow, and as far as that problem going away, oh yeah…it did!”

It was the open, honest communication that created the emotional intimacy.  That led to a new level of physical intimacy that wouldn’t have been possible without it.  We began applying that same communication to every area of our lives. If I had a question about something, I asked.  If something bothered me, I said so, instead of telling myself it wasn’t important, and my wife started doing the same.  We were careful to say it in loving, non-accusational ways, and it created a mutual trust and understanding that kept the air clear and brought us closer than we’d ever been.

As an example, my wife likes to play video games and I don’t.  For her, they are a way to “disconnect” for a time, especially when work has been stressful.  I used to see it as her disconnecting from me and I would resent the time she spent playing.  We had never talked about it.  Now, I willingly give her time to play because I know it blesses her, and she willingly limits her game time to make sure to give me the time and attention I need.  Additionally, we discovered that I do like to play kinect and we bought one so we can play together.

Just last night, my wife was talking about something and she stopped herself and said, “That’s the old way of thinking.”  I asked her what she meant and she said, “Hoping you’ll figure out that I don’t want to go instead of just saying so.”  It really is a new way of thinking, and it leads to a new way of acting.  We communicate openly about everything, and we’ve never been closer.

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